Let me spell it out for you.
I studied Management Engineering at the University of Waterloo, and attended Crescent School in Toronto. I'm a driven, passionate individual that loves to take big ideas and bring them to light. My interests are product design, mobile development, robotics, music, consumer electronics, disruptive ideas, and soccer. My goal is simple: make an impact on this world in any way that I can, and never settle until I do.
THE ONE THEY CALL "JG"
People know me for a few different reasons.
ARTIST
I have amassed over 150,000 views on YouTube from the songs I have written about FIRST Robotics, Crescent School, and the University of Waterloo and the videos I have produced.
ENGINEER
I learned about making businesses and processes effective and efficient in Waterloo's Management Engineering program. I learned React Native for mobile development.
PROFESSIONAL
I've had a wide range of experiences that combine my knack for product management, technical skills as a programmer, and my background in Mobile Development.Highlights
Click on an image to see more.
Role at Square
Joined Square for an exciting role on their expanding e-commerce team.
Past and Present
Honoured to be featured in Crescent School's quarterly Alumni publication.
StaatsCustoms on Etsy
We began prototyping physical product for users of our trading card maker app to purchase. Selling standalone on Etsy, we reached 2250 Sales, 500+ 5-star reviews in 7 months.
Black Innovation Fellowship
Ryerson DMZ's 6-week BIF program gave us world class startup advice that led us to pivot our core business into 6 figure revenues over the holiday season.
Peloton
Fitness + Tech = 🔥. I got my Peloton bike just in time for COVID, and it became a key motivator for my at home fitness! Highly recommended.
Staats V1
I had a strong desire to build my first app full-time. I explored custom trading cards, athlete rankings, and an anonymous social network.
Black Is Tech NYC
Ultimate Software sponsored the Black Is Tech Conference's inaugural year. I had the opportunity to network with black engineers, recruiters, founders, hear inspiring keynotes, and polished startup pitches.
UltiPro V2 App Launch
We released the new-and-improved UltiPro app to the App Store. V2 is a major overhaul of the first app, completely redesigned and using the latest tech stack. This was a huge milestone for our team!
Toronto Black Youth Conference
A conference created by Black Youth for Black Youth. As a mentor, I shared my journey, had real conversations with many great kids, giving advice on how to pursue their passions in life.
Crescent School Day X
Crescent held their first project-based learning day for their Middle School boys. As a mentor, I had a group of 15 students design, build, and create content for a mobile app in 3 hours.
Windowshopper
Continuing on recent inspiration from development work I've done, places I've visited, and people I have spoken to - I started a startup called Windowshopper, a retail solution for improving customer engagement.
PopTag App
My app diddit morphed into a new app called PopTag, which is a fun and simple icebreaker app that has a couple of minigames in it. This app was developed and deployed to the App Store, replacing diddit.
Rich Get Richer - EP
Inspired by recent events and a foray into the world of investing - I released a 5-track EP on Spotify and Apple Music.
Trip to San Francisco
I flew to SF to attend the two Crescent School alumni events held in SF and Mountain View. I got the opportunity to tour Apple and Google, and had some great conversations with alum currently working in the Valley.
diddit - App Store Release
diddit - our app for crowdsourced activities for any event, place or interest, was approved by Apple and released to the App Store! In the following weeks, we pushed many builds to quickly iterate on feedback.
UW Management Engineering Presents: Manchester
Students in 1A, 2A, 3B and Management Sciences faculty members celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Management Engineering program with a parody of Drake's Gyalchester.
PDIS Team Trip
3 days. Universal Studios Resort. A Welcome Reception to end all receptions. Express Pass. Hard Rock. Nightlife. Orlando, Florida - the Ulti-way!
Town Hall App
Town Hall is a platform to give your honest opinion on one topic per day. You’ve got one comment - no swearing or profanity.
Crescent School Alumni
I was happy to share a few thoughts about Crescent School's financial aid program - its importance and its impact on me.
Heritage Hero
The Heritage Heroes campaign highlights rising stars and young professionals who are Heritage RESP alumni, and are doing great things within Canada.
Real A$$ Housewife
Wrote a song poking fun at "Real Housewives" stereotypes, despite having never watched the show. Filmed an elaborate video with Kara Alloway!
FIRST Championship: St. Louis
I attended St. Louis' final championship event, once again helping FIRST with social media related work. On top of that, my team from Crescent, Team 610, was competing so I was able to see them in action.
FIRST Championship: Houston
I travelled to Houston, Texas to attend the FIRST Robotics Championship - for the 6th time. While there, I helped out by conducting sponsor interviews, touring VVIP guests, and creating content for social media.
VIVID 2.0
After learning the ins and outs of the Messenger platform by developing my personal bot, I dove into VIVID's codebase. I was able to make many visual and structural enhancements to the bot to take it to the next level!
The Jordan Grant Chatbot
I decided to learn about bot development by creating a personal chatbot for my fanpage! Using Facebook's platform and Node.js, I was able to create a bot that serves up interesting information about my life!
Why I Made a Social Network for Myself
We finally launched our chatbot, VIVID. I wrote a Medium article explaining the motivation behind the bot, and the amazing experiences I've had while building it - in LA and in Waterloo.
4th Co-op: Ultimate Software
I received an offer to join the Software Test Engineering team at Ultimate Software for the Spring co-op term. I will be back in downtown Toronto for the summer, just like in 2015 at Deloitte!
Los Angeles
I left school mid-week to attend the TRANS4M Gala, then continued to enjoy California. On this trip, my brother and I went to see the Walk of Fame, Hollywood Sign, Rodeo Drive, USC, Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier, and Migos in concert!
will.i.am's TRANS4M Gala
I attended a charity gala for the i.am.angel Foundation, with members of FIRST, who were sponsors for the event. Will.i.am's charity sends underprivileged kids to college and supports STEM education in LA.
Dean Kamen's House
I flew to New Hampshire for the FIRST Robotics Founder's Reception. We toured Dean Kamen's home, which looks more like a tech museum, and spoke with important FIRST administrators and sponsors.
Third Co-op At Kik
Spent my 3rd co-op term doing QA Engineering at Kik Interactive. Working at a tech company was an amazing experience, and getting to work with the latest features before release was especially exciting.
Intramural Soccer Champions
That's title number 5! The "Dick Howard" legacy continues, especially this term, winning the top-level 11v11 division. Our team was turbocharged and took the title handily in another undefeated season.
LetsGoViral
Launched version 1.0 of the first mainstream chatbot on Facebook Messenger, LetsGoViral. The bot gives users challenges to complete in real life with friends, and lets you see the crazy things other people are doing!
Billie (Official Music Video)
On November 20th, I released my first official single under my own name. "Billie" was a test to see how crazy we could make a music video!
RISK2GAIN Media
My brother and I started a company called RISK2GAIN. The company will encompass all of our ventures ranging from music, to video production, to app development.
Intramural Frisbee Champions
"Flicks And Chill" went undefeated with a 9-0 record to take the title in the school's highest intramural ultimate frisbee division. The team dominated, scoring 64 points and conceding only 21. This signified my 4th intramural victory.
Intramural Soccer Champions
The Management Engineering-based squad "Sporting Club Carnival" came out on top in the Semi-Competitive soccer division. After ranking only 5th out of 14 in the regular season, a handful of dramatic playoff games changed our fate.
National Certificate of Achievement
My dad, David Grant, was honoured with a Certificate of Achievement from the Prime Minister's Awards for Teaching Excellence. Having been his student for 19 years, I was more than proud to be there to celebrate his accomplishment.
Waterloo Engineering Competition
In the Senior Design Competition, we were thrown into a 6-hour design sprint and presented the next morning. Although we were unsuccessful at completing the challenge, we were glad to participate and chase our chokehold strategy.
Performing at FIRST Championship
Before the final matches on Einstein, I performed One Bot Can Change The World for an audience of 30,000. I was truly honoured to perform onstage, after 4 years of making FIRST robotics parodies.
'Easy TV' Published to the App Store
As a personal side project, I learned iOS app development and published my first app to the App Store. In a few months, I was able to create a basic app that helps users keep track of the tv shows they watch.
JG2012 Video & Jordan Grant Photography
I purchased a new mirrorless camera to shoot videos with, and will also begin exploring photography. With my new equipment I have begun to explore new styles of videos such as vlogs.
Second Co-op at the University of Waterloo
I completed my second co-op term at the University as an Intro to Computer Programming TA. It was a very different experience from my first co-op but still extremely valuable and interesting.
Performing at the 2016 FRC Waterloo Regional
As the winner of the FIRST Robotics Song Parody Contest, a UWaterloo student, and alumnus of Team 610, I performed my song parody, One Bot Can Change The World. I captivated an audience of 2000 people, with 1500 watching via livestream.
Intramural Futsal Champions
Team "Dick Howard" placed first in the Winter 2016 University of Waterloo Intramural Futsal Competitive Division. We finished the season undefeated, with a 7-0-2 record. The season culminated in an exciting 7-7 game, decided in penalties.
2015 Co-op Student of the Year - Engineering
Honoured as Co-op Student of the Year out of 18,300 University of Waterloo students participating in the highly competitive cooperative education program.
Waterloo, no spirit?
I wrote and shot my first non-parody song, 'Black and Gold'. It showcases the ways in which Waterloo students show school pride, and is highly relatable to students.
Launching the Deloitte Tech Exchange
The Deloitte Tech Exchange is a program that enables students to work with cutting-edge technology they otherwise would not have access to. 100 students received these devices and built solutions to real-world problems.
Winning a Photo Contest
Posing for a selfie with the 2019 Management Engineering class and amassing nearly 700 likes on the photo won me $500 in Waterloo's photo contest. The story was posted on the UWaterloo Life blog, the 2nd time I've been featured.
Creating 'WatCard'
A fun weekend filming, driving cars, and flying drones in Waterloo turned into a campus-wide phenomenon with the music video 'Watcard'. It received 23,000 views in under a week. To date, it has been viewed over 40,000 times.
First Co-op Term at Deloitte
I spent my first 4 month co-op term at Deloitte's National Innovation Office in Toronto. I supported numerous projects dealing with disruptive and exponential technologies, and even got the opportunity to pilot my own project.
TEDxCrescentSchool
Built the Spinning LED Orb, a toy for the disabled children at Sunny View School in Toronto. With Thomas Bell and Jacob Su, we accomplished this in under 10 months. I presented the device at Crescent's TEDx event in June 2014.
Graduation
On June 13th, 2014 I graduated from Crescent School after four amazing years. I was grateful to receive the Thom Family Award, given to the student that best embodies the ideals of the school and contributes to all aspects of school life.
RoboJam
Hot off our victory at the Championship event, I helped organize an end-of-season party called RoboJam. We invited robotics teams from all across Ontario to join us in playing sports and games. I performed 'Workshop'.
CISAA Ultimate Champions
The Crescent + Havergal Varsity Ultimate Frisbee Team finally pulled off a win against The York School to take the title, after coming in second the year prior. We won the game on the final point, making it 13-12.
FIRST Championship Winners
Team 610 won the FIRST Robotics Competition World Championships in St. Louis on April 27th, 2013. With our frisbee shooting robot, we joined an alliance with teams from Mississauga and Texas to win the title.
Friday Night Lights
Facing off against Upper Canada College on a Friday night, with hundreds of fans cheering on the sidelines, Crescent's Varsity Soccer Team fought hard and won 3-1. This game was the highlight of the 2012 soccer season.
